At the risk of starting what is a lengthy discourse, I would refer you to the persistence of the ‘moral economy’ so described by British historian, E.P. Thompson. From the end of feudalism until the rise of a purely instrumental economy of industrial capitalism, the rules of law and morality that governed economic transactions were designed to promote the greatest sustainable self-sufficiency for the greatest number of people. In Colonial America, where there was no central governments of any significance, the towns controlled price, standards, and participation in all markets with first access at the best price given to the poor – widows, orphans, the elderly, and infirm – before the able-bodied could buy.
Production in any given town was given to mill owners on the proviso they produced for the members of the town first before being free to sell elsewhere – where they were bounded by another town’s control of their own market. Colonies had courts of assize just as did England, in which violations of price and standards could be prosecuted. The rule of land was similar – while ownership of private property was decisive, the use of that property was in no way absolute and could not be at the expense of others. Individual mill owners were meant to prosper, just never at the expense of the town and its residents.
For greater detail about the regulation and persistence (in Massachusetts the control of prices lasted until 1802 of moral economic measures, you can find great detail in Morton Horwitz’s book, The Transformation of American Law and considerable detail about the practice of moral economy in Europe in the unpublished Harvard dissertation by Richard E. Gordon Pre-capitalist social formations and the transition to industrial capitalism / 1981.
Locations/Orders : Location : Harvard Archives HU 90.11528.80 Harvard Depository Library Info
Notes : Thesis (Ph. D.)–Harvard University, 1981. HOLLIS Number : 003842552
Current recapitulation of the moral economic principles is active within progressive faith work on restoring “Jubilee” or “Sabbath” economics, especially around the issue of debt forgiveness in under-developed nations. It is rearing its head in many US depressed communities with the restoration of community-driven economic activities that begin with the premise of the Common Good rather than individual gain, though the two are not necessarily inimical. On a larger scale, worker and community ownership – even in a concern as large as Southwest Airlines – incorporate principles of moral economics. It is, after all, the fundamental issue behind credit unions and all cooperative enterprise. It is neither an archaic nor economically inefficient means of altering and stabilizing the economy of a global society. There is no necessary reason that stability and balance between self and others cannot flourish as a means of doing business in the 21st Century. We do have those choices.free taking 5 movie download
